Trust: Chasing Flashes in the Darkness

by David Delp | Jul 30, 2016 | Uncategorized

I’ve always needed to learn to relax. I’ve always been too uptight and worried. Part of learning to TRUST God is relaxing and living in your own skin.

I don’t do this often, but this is a direct excerpt from my journal about relaxing and trusting God. It is very reflective, and not polished, so it won’t be for everyone, but it is my heart and one of the impacts of my sabbatical…

On the plane from Brussels to DC there was  a musician kid, mid 20s, who had long hair and a scruffy beard. I watched him. He had kind eyes and a kind face. He was so comfortable in his own skin.

I could tell by his interactions with the other passengers that he was kind, thoughtful of others, and he was very comfortable with himself and had nothing to prove.

At one point during the flight he got cold and pulled down his faded canvas back pack. When he pulled out his sweater I thought to myself, “I knew it. I knew he would have a sweater like that.” Large knit, colorful, large 3/4 sleeves.

The fascination for me was he was so comfortable with who he was that it never occurred to him to try to be someone else.

I want to be like that. I want to be oblivious to pressures to conform to convention and just relax in who I am in Christ and the unique purposes God has prepared for me. I want to reach for the divine revelations that draw me and simply be oblivious to the observations of the gallery. I want to rely upon the purity of my heart and my sincere desire to please God, and reach for the things in my heart and not give a… ummm… concern myself with what anyone thinks… Not because I don’t care about them, but because it just simply does not occur to me that anyone should have a problem or an interest in what I love and what brings me joy and makes me happy in the pursuit of God’s will.

[shareable]I want to be oblivious to pressures to conform and just relax in who I am in Christ and the unique purposes God has prepared for me.[/shareable]

[callout]I want to reach for the divine revelations that draw me and simply be oblivious to the observations of the gallery.[/callout]

I might just keep the beard. I might just wear my Italian hat a lot. I might just laugh and dream and chase shooting stars in the same way I chased lightning bugs when I was a kid. In the darkness waiting for the flash, then running toward where I saw the brief flash and finding the lightning bug hovering in the darkness. I would harvest the little bugs and place them in a glass jar with holes poked in the metal lid so they could breathe.

We searched for the bugs with abandon. We had nothing else to do in the moment beyond dreading the bedtime clock that would soon call us in. We did not give a thought about tomorrow, or pay checks or bills or groceries, at least I didn’t. In those moments all seemed right with the world. It just made me happy to chase those bugs, for absolutely no redeeming purpose.

That was almost 50 years ago. I lost the wonder somewhere along the way. Life got serious and cluttered and painful. Nope, I’m not Peter Pan, so life isn’t going to be all of that…but where’s the joy? Do I have to wait for retirement before I can accomplish what I really want to accomplish? Do I wish the time would pass more quickly, or perhaps I should position myself with the kind of life that will hope for more time. A life that dreads the bedtime clock because I am thoroughly enjoying what I’m doing. What is that worth?

Yep, as I write, we are sitting at a coffee shop. I’m drinking a Chai Latte, at least I was until a few minutes ago when I finished it. I’m wearing an orange shirt, white plaid shorts, hiking sandals, a blue Italian flat hat, and carrying a faded canvas bag. I’m typing on my iPad.

I know what I want to do with my life.

I want to lay my head on Abba (*Abba is a word for Father used in the New Testament which has, for me, the English equivalent of “Daddy”) Father’s chest and listen to his heartbeat.

To listen for the things important to Him.

To hear his heart.

Then I want to do what his heart instructs.

That’s it! That’s all!

If I can do that, and do it well, then I will dread the call of the bedtime clock. I will love every moment. Doesn’t mean there won’t be pain, challenges, losses, regrets, sadness, and real struggles sometimes… But there will be joy, a joy that I will not want to end.

I know what I want to do with my life… I know what I hear in the father’s heartbeat.

I know!

All that I’ve written on trust (in my journal) has taught me that I will not have much direction beyond just chasing the next flash of light in the darkness, but when I get there, I’ll find the source of light hovering in the darkness, and when I see it I will smile with excitement, I will reach out and lay hold and put it in my jar.

I was born to listen to Abba Father’s heart. I was born to hear. I was born to obey what I heard. To write it down. To put the voice of Abba Father in resources that will help other people understand his heart and experience the joy of becoming like Jesus.

I am going to run into the darkness toward the flash of light that I see. I will not know why, I’ll just chase the light. Maybe I’ll make lightning bug soup, or put them on display in my jar, maybe I’ll turn them loose so I can chase them again on another summer night.

[callout]I am going to run into the darkness toward the flash of light that I see.[/callout]

On my journey of loss and pain, in my darkest moments, in the moments I wanted to just give up, the heartbeat of God would speak to me, saying, “I almost have you where I want you.” Those words gave me courage, because if God had not given up on me, I was encouraged to just keep going.

On our first day back in the United States, while pondering all of these things, I heard the heartbeat of the Father again, this time saying, “NOW I have you where I want you.” I wept hard. Finally!

And I realized something I never knew or thought of. I realized that the place Abba wanted me to be was a place of brokenness where I was ready to start. I had suspected it to be a place of arrival, but I found the place Abba wanted me to be was a place of beginning… A place where I was ready and willing to obey.

A place where I was comfortable in my own skin.

A place where I was willing to move forward with only a brief flash of light in the darkness.

A place of trust, and not a place of clarity to know all of the details of the journey.

A place of joy. A place of gratitude. A place of trust.

Listen to me world…
… I am exactly, right now who Abba wants me to be. I am in the exact place Abba wants me to be. I know exactly what he wants me to do right now… And he will help me.

What I don’t know… I don’t know the doors that will open, I don’t know where I will end up, I don’t know what is next after I start doing what he’s told me… But, I don’t need to know. That is not my business.

You see, Abba knows when I will take my last breath and he knows what I need up until that time. He knows what I am to accomplish, he knows the paths I must take, or at least the ones he wants me to take.

I WILL LOOK FOR THE FLASHES IN THE DARKNESS, and there I will find the treasure hovering in the darkness. When I lay hold of it… I will look for the next flash.

Clarity or Trust?

by David Delp | Jul 20, 2016 | Uncategorized

In preparation for our sabbatical I asked my friends to pray for us that God would give us clarity. In my mind I wanted clarity for the future, but that’s not what I really needed–I needed a deeper level of trust.

Yes, we did need clarity of mind so we could clearly hear the directions of the Father as he saw fit to give them to us, and for that I am thankful. What we wanted was a clear and detailed road map, but what we got was a deeper trust in God.

It amazes me how clearly God communicates. We had been in Europe for all of one week when, in my son-in-law’s study in Cavazalle, Italy, I saw on his shelf a book with just one word on the spline, “Manning.” Being a Peyton Manning fan, the word caught my attention, but I quickly realized that this Manning was most likely the author, Brennan Manning, who had written a number of books including The Ragamuffin Gospel. Having read some of his works, and having had my intellect and spirit challenged by him in the past, I pulled the book from the shelf. The title of the book was Ruthless Trust: The Ragamuffin’s Path to God (2002, HarperCollins).

I began to scan the pages and when I reached page 5 all of the air went out of my lungs. It was one of those moments when you are certain God is telling you something. Here are the words that captured my attention:

When the brilliant ethicist John Kavanaugh went to work for three months at “the house of the dying” in Calcutta, he was seeking a clear answer as to how best to spend the rest of his life. On the first morning there he met Mother Teresa. She asked, “And what can I do for you?” Kavanaugh asked her to pray for him.

“What do you want me to pray for?” she asked. He voiced the request that he had borne thousands of miles from the United States: “Pray that I have clarity.”

She said firmly, “No, I will not do that.” When he asked her why, she said, “Clarity is the last thing you are clinging to and must let go of.” When Kavanaugh commented that she always seemed to have the clarity he longed for, she laughed and said, “I have never had clarity; what I have always had is trust. So I will pray that you trust God.”

After reading those words, I sat on the edge of the bed in silence for a long time. The placement of this book was not a coincidence or an accident, it was a divine convergence. Every day, Donna and I had prayed for clarity. Now, for sure, we did need clarity, but not clarity for the future, we simply needed clarity of mind so we could listen to the heartbeat of the Father. What we really needed was trust to obey that heartbeat.

Trust.

Trust? I thought I had learned to trust God. Both of us had. We have both experienced loss and pain and we have continued to trust God even when it was difficult to do so. Trust? For the weeks following, Donna and I pondered this message of trust vs. clarity.

[shareable]When we trust God, we only need clarity for the next step.[/shareable]

When we trust God we only need clarity for the next step. Trust enables us to step into God’s future without the details. The only clarity necessary for obedience is to simply and clearly understand the next directive. I do not have to know the end game, in fact, I WILL NOT know the end game, only the next play.

Oh yeah, I know that a lot of leaders thrive on a complete and comprehensive vision, and I’m good with that, I wish I had a detailed road map that comprehensively covers everything between now and my last breath; but for me, for us, God is calling us to trust him and be willing to take steps without the benefit of the knowledge of every step thereafter. You see, there are things in our hearts that are very clear, I clearly know the next steps God is asking us to take, but they are only next steps. I know where I hope the steps lead, I think I know where they will lead, but I am bound to obediently take the next steps and trust God to direct the eventual path. God consistently tells us to be obedient, do what he is asking, and to trust that the path will lead us where he wants us to be. And we have to trust that where the path takes us will be a good path.

We are stepping out into God’s preferred future.

We are trusting that with each successive step, the next steps will be clear.

We are only accountable to do what we know to do.

Obedience is doing what we know to do, even when we don’t know all of the details.

Trust is not having to understand.

Years ago, when I was a boy, in church we sang a song. We sang it so often that it was impressed upon my heart. A man named James Wells wrote the song in 1918, and it is engraved on my heart. We would lift up our voices and sing:

I care not today what the morrow may bring,
If shadow or sunshine or rain,
The Lord I know ruleth o’er everything,
And all of my worries are vain.

Living by faith in Jesus above,
Trusting, confiding in His great love;
From all harm safe in His sheltering arm,
I’m living by faith and feel no alarm.

Wag the Dog: Manage the Agenda

by David Delp | Jun 13, 2016 | Uncategorized

What sets my agenda? What guides my days? The way I spend my days eventually shapes my life and legacy, so, I need to control what shapes my days.

I’ve noticed, as I’ve waded into sabbatical, that I keep picking up my phone and looking at it. My email is shut down, my phone number is temporarily changed, all notifications are off except for emergency contacts and family, but I am so used to taking cues from my phone that I keep looking at the empty screen. What’s up with that!?

I’m realizing my phone has been setting too much of my agenda. Someone sends me an instant message and I feel obligated to instantly reply with an answer, a solution, or a commitment. I get an email notification: Someone with an agenda is innocently attempting to reset my agenda. An incoming phone call that will probably consume 20 minutes just hearing about a situation and then another item added to my agenda before the end of the call.

One of the things that’s been stressing me out over the past few years is the inability to get important things done. What can wait until tomorrow usually does because every day my phone (or other communication devices) sets too much of my agenda for the day.

Everyone has this challenge, but I was not aware of how much it was true for me until, for the last few days, I keep looking at a blank phone. It’s like I’m expecting it to tell me what to do next. Good grief! I feel lost.

So, how do I need to fly differently? Here’s a few of my thoughts:

A communications ban for the first two hours of my day.

I get up early every morning to pray, listen, think, and read. If I look at notifications on my lock screen before I get out of bed, someone else is already setting my agenda. I want my daily agenda to be a collaboration between myself and God.

Set my daily agenda early.

Before turning on communications devices I will take a few moments to set my agenda for the day. When other items arise, I will put them in their appropriate place in the schedule.

Leave plenty of margin every day for things important to important people.

My second core value relates to people and relationships. People are always God’s focus and people are my focus. If my agenda is so packed that I do not have time for people, then my agenda and responsibilities are simply too tight. I cannot be reactionary, and the way to do that is leaving margin in my schedule. I simply MUST block time in every day’s agenda to check communications and respond. The problem, for me, arises when my agenda is so tight it has no room for response; then I become reactionary and something important suffers.

Layer and manage notifications.

In preparation for sabbatical I’ve spent a good bit of time thinking through the management of communications. I’ve set up new numbers and email and managed notifications on all of my social media apps. I’m discovering that I don’t have to have everything immediately ping my phone. Moving forward I will have one method for family to ping me with an instant notification, everything else will be set for me to check on schedule rather than being instantly alerted. I am committing myself to controlling communications rather than letting them control me.

Learn to respond with a simple “no” when necessary.

I love and care about people. I am a people-pleaser. I do not like to tell people “no.” I need to learn the art of a gracious “no.” I’ll always do my best to accommodate people important to me, but I must embrace the gift of limitations. When I say “yes” there has to be a space on my calendar to accommodate the “yes.” If I do not have time, then I either have to say “no” to the request or say “no” to something else. Every “yes” requires an equal and opposite reaction with a “no.” One way I need to say “no” is by not allowing instant communications to be instant, unless I want them to be.

Declare limited communication zones.

I cannot think and create at my highest level if I keep getting pings. Distractions drain creativity and focus. I simply must guard strategic and creative times. Stress levels build and inefficiency rules with a divided focus. When working strategically and creatively everything must be off. My emergency contact plan will be the only immediate contact possible during creative/strategic times.

Don’t believe the “multi-tasking” lie.

There is no such thing as giving two tasks your full attention. When we do two or more things at once we simply divide our focus and give less-than-our-best attention to each task. Exceptions might be doing two tasks simultaneously when neither of them requires strategic or creative thought.

Finally…

I have to control technology, rather than technology controlling me. I’ve known for a long time that I must fly differently to accomplish the focus needed to get into my legacy zone. These are things I’m thinking about in restructuring my life. I’m tired of being a mile wide and an inch deep. Focus is extremely important to effectiveness… I want to be effective.

(My priority during sabbatical is listening to the heart of the Father. I’ll not be moderating comments during sabbatical.)

A Leader’s Personal Integrity is Public

by David Delp | May 28, 2016 | Uncategorized

The personal integrity of politicians, preachers, and other community leaders is everyone’s business because it affects the integrity of government, the church, and other organizations necessary for the health and wholeness of a community, nation, and world.

Yesterday Donna and I were watching an episode of the Lone Ranger. I think it safe to say that it’s been well over 30 years since I’ve watched an episode of the Lone Ranger. Lone Ranger reruns were one of my favorite shows when I was a small boy. The masked man and his buddy, Tonto, could handle any situation.

In the episode we watched yesterday, the Lone Ranger and Tonto observed a successful and prominent banker from town riding in the desert. They followed him from a distance because it was unusual for such a man to be riding alone in the desert. They needed to see why.

The banker met a group of armed masked men and gave them an envelope of money. Shortly after the meeting the Lone Ranger and Tonto confronted the banker. The banker told them the matter was none of their business. The Lone Ranger replied with something to this effect: “It is my business because the integrity of a community’s bank is important to the community.” The Lone Ranger’s explicit implication was that if something in the banker’s life called his integrity into question, then the integrity of the bank was in question, and if the bank lacked integrity, the community would suffer.

If we lead an important organization, then our personal integrity matters. If people count on the organization we lead for health and wholeness, then our private lives and integrity matter. The personal integrity of the President of the United States of America matters, because the integrity of our government matters. The same goes for all politicians. The integrity of ministers and pastors matter because the integrity of the church is important to a community and the individuals who find spiritual community through the church.

It is my business when a church, government, or community leader acts immorally. It is my business when they lack integrity. It is my business to call them out and ask for accountability. Why? Because their lack of integrity strips integrity from the organization they lead.

In recent decades, immoral presidents have weakened the integrity of our nation. Their private sins were the business of every American. Many said the president’s private immorality was not the business of the public. In fact, I remember a president and presidential candidates in the last 3 decades who have stated that their private lives were not important to the execution of their duties. Not so. I will agree, everyone need not be privy to ugly details, but accountability structures must be in place to disqualify an individual from leadership when necessary.

We need to strike a balance on this topic. As a leader I need and want a private life. The kind of ice cream I like, the size of my shoes, how much of my salary I save, private family conversations, relational challenges, etc., are examples of things that are my own business; but, when immorality is involved in the private life of a leader it damages the integrity of an organization important to the health of a community.

I know many definitions of morality exist and people disagree upon what is moral and what is immoral. This is why our government lacks integrity that it may never regain, because our nation cannot agree on what is and is not moral.

When a leader lies, cheats, steals, is sexually immoral, or generally lacks integrity, it directly affects everyone they influence. As a leader, how can I guard my integrity? Following are 5 quick and simple thoughts:

Avoid the appearance of evil.

If something might have the appearance of a lack of integrity, I need to cover myself with accountability. To proactively inform a colleague or authority of my actions, along with an explanation, will guard my integrity when something could be misunderstood.

Realize my personal life and my professional life are linked and intertwined.

The bible requires a spiritual leader to lead their own households well with the argument that if we cannot lead with integrity in our own homes, what makes us think we can effectively lead God’s business? I may not like it, but how I live my personal life does affect my leadership integrity.

Accept that I am an example.

The way I manage my finances, and the way I treat my wife and children, set an example. Sometimes I don’t want to be an example, but I am. By allowing myself to lead an organization important to the life of a community, the nation, and the world, I do set myself up as an example for how life should be lived.

Do not try to create an illusion of perfection.

Integrity means “whole,” it does not mean “perfect.” Sometimes the best example I can set is demonstrating integrity in my imperfection. How do I deal with my mistakes? How do I fix my failures? How do I protect myself from my own propensities toward sin? How do I guard my eyes and my heart?

Assure that private actions will withstand public scrutiny, if necessary.

I must assure that what I do in private, and the things I want to keep private, are moral, upright, integral, and will withstand any scrutiny brought to bear.

I have a private life that I want to keep private, but my privacy is never a license for immorality. I must exercise integrity when people are watching, and when they are not watching. On sabbatical, and any other times of private disconnection, I am accountable to God for what I do and who I am. Integrity is not only something I do, it is something I am, and who I am qualifies me to lead.

(I am on sabbatical this summer and I am blogging some of my thoughts as I listen to the heart of the Father. I’ll not be moderating comments while on sabbatical.)